Children of the Wood
by Anna the Lynx
Summary: When an illness decimates St. Petersburg, the young survivors must pick up the pieces of their lives and cope with the repercussions of surviving this illness in particular.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: My first published story-and it only took me the better part of a year to convince myself to post it! Concrit is welcome, flames are not, and I'll count myself lucky if I get even one review. **

**I do not own _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ outside of a copy on my nook. I do not know anything about medicine or diseases beyond what the internet can tell me, and even then I twist the facts to suit me. Therefore, whatever this story tells you is wildly inaccurate.**

**Enjoy!**

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_PROLOGUE_

_ They say that all good things_ _must eventually come to an end. In the children's paradise of St. Petersburg, Missouri, that end came with brutal force._

_ It began with the elderly: old Mother Hopkins was found dead on her kitchen floor. Following close behind was Nat Parson, the aged and feeble postmaster. It was believed to be natural causes until there were too many dead for coincidence, and then it struck hard._

_ The most venerable merely died, passing on too quick for the pain to set in. The less aged suffered far longer, wracked with intense, bone-deep pain as their skeletons shifted and distorted until death released them, unrecognizable as even human beings._

_ Called "the Bone-Warp" by the townsfolk, the disease became omnipresent throughout St. Petersburg. White crosses signifying its presence appeared on door after door as more and more people fell victim to that plague._

_ The village doctors could do little against this new disease. Nothing in their arsenal of sulfates and pills could even dent its severity. All they could do was prescribe opiates and morphine to try and dull the pain—and then they too fell ill._

_ One particularly observant physician, though, noticed a heartening trend among his younger patients—contrary to most serious illnesses' habits, not one patient under thirteen died of the Bone-Warp. Unfortunately, the physician himself died before he could announce this near-miracle, looking more like a dog than a man._

_ Within eight months, there was no one left over the age of seventeen._

_ The children, the survivors, were on their own._

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Chapter 1

Tom had never felt so useless in his entire life as he had when Aunt Polly had been sick with the Bone-Warp. Today was a close second—Huck was sick now, too. Since the widow had died, there was no one else who really gave a durn about him besides Tom and maybe Joe Harper.

So Tom took the bottle of morphine from the medicine cabinet, put on his hat and sole, patchy coat, and set out into the downpour.

* * *

Soaked to the bone and splattered with mud, Tom imagined that he looked at least as miserable as he felt—or like a drowned cat. Privately, he swore to never again toss Mary's gray cat out in the rain as he drew near his destination.

The Douglas mansion loomed like something out of a Gothic novel, the recent weeks of neglect giving it the raggedy and mournful air of a place haunted by restless spirits. Tom could even hear ghostly, keening cries of agony…

With a sudden jolt of guilt, Tom realized that the wailing wasn't his well-exercised imagination—it was Huck! Who knew how long he'd been in pain while Tom had stood around daydreaming like some brainless knucklehead?

"Hang on, Huck!"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Tom barreled down the widow's front path, pausing only to open and shut the heavy door. His sopping coat hit the floor with a_ smack_ and in an eyeblink he was halfway up the staircase.

He resolutely did not notice the way the portraits on the walls seemed to watch him, or the way the furniture made ghostly shapes in the gloom. Huck was sick and hurting bad enough to cry, and Huck had _never_ cried, not ever that Tom could recollect. He needed that medicine, and come Hell or high water Tom would get it to him.

Somewhere between the foyer and the landing, Huck's screams had quieted to raw-throated sobs. By the top of the steps, those grew softer still. Tom felt cold dread in his heart, envisioning his dearest friend calmed by Death's impartial company even as a voice in his heart and the bottle in his hand reminded him that where there's life, there's hope; and anyways, the dead don't make noise.

_''Less they're ghosts,' _Tom thought as he opened the bedroom door.

* * *

The agonized, whimpering figure in the bed was recognizable as Huckleberry Finn, but only just. The boy's limbs had deformed into something like a dog's, his face had distorted into a short muzzle and there was blood in his sharp-toothed mouth— he'd bit his lip.

Tom's heart clenched horribly.

"Huck?" His voice was quiet, but he knew Huck heard him when those pointed ears twitched. "It's me, Tom. I know you're hurt, hush now. I brought medicine for you, here."

Tom groped about, at last laying hands on a dessert spoon on the bedside table. '_This'll do for now, it's near enough what Mary used for me an' Sid.'_

As carefully as a chemist in his laboratory, Tom measured out exactly one spoonful of laudanum. Then came the task of getting Huck propped up so he could take it. It occurred to Tom that he should have propped Huck up before pouring the medicine, but it was too late for that now. _'Oh well.'_

Cautiously, Tom balanced the full spoon on the table's edge before slipping an arm around Huck's shoulders and gently lifting his ailing friend against his own chest. Spoon once again in hand; Tom dosed his friend, watching the pain in his face drain away. Within moments, Huck was peacefully asleep.

Carefully, Tom shifted his best friend back onto the pillows and slipped out of the bed. Now that he'd got some medicine in him, Huck would need water and nourishment when he woke up.

_'Broth is best,'_ Tom decided. _'And more water for a spit bath, he smells awful bad for bein' just one day bedridden.'_

Come to think of it, everything smelled a little stronger since he'd got over his own touch of the Bone-Warp…

But that was neither here nor there. Huck wasn't about to sleep forever, and he'd have a hard enough time of it to go without food or water. Best find the kitchen now, see what he could do.

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**A/N: Yes, it's short. And the wait was long. There's only so much writing a college student can get done at once, and papers take precedence, unfortunately. Mea maxima culpa!**


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